Cubs, an all encompassing trip

Results tagged ‘ Kris Bryant ’

Starlin Castro could save all the puppies in the World, and someone would still find a problem with it. Here he is mimicking Kris Bryant tonight against the Cardinals, I laughed, you should too, you know why? IT’S A GAME.

Despite losing Adam Wainwright for the season, the Cardinals are off to their best start in basically forever. They are 18-6 on the season, and sit at the top of the NL Central with a 4.5 game lead on the second place Cubs. The Cardinals have won six straight games, and are 11-2 at home, which means they are bound to lose some games! The Cubs come into this series limping on the offensive side of things, not a whole lot is going right at the plate. Despite recent struggles, the Cubs are off to a pretty solid start of their own, and this series is probably the first “big” one of the year as the Cubs would love to split, and hold steady in second place.

Cardinals: Of course Matt Carpenter is taking it to another level this year, he’s been fantastic. Over his last seven games he’s hitting .360 (9-for-25) with four doubles, a triple, a dinger, five RBI’s, and five walks. Go away.

Cubs: After a slow start to the year, Miguel Montero is turning it on. Miggy is hitting .467 (7-for-15) over his last four starts with an RBI, and a walk. Would like to see some extra base hits, but he’s squaring it up.

Who is Not:

Cardinals: Well, it’s only a matter of time before Yadier Molina starts coming up with big hits, it’s usually against the Cubs. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, the aging backstop is struggling, he’s hitting .111 (3-for-27) in his last seven with only two strikeouts, the BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is getting him.

Cubs: It was probably a matter of time before Kris Bryant cooled down, he wasn’t going to hit .400 this year contrary to many reports from fans. Bryant is hitting .190 (4-for-21) over his last six with four walks, and ten strikeouts.

The Cubs have all of a sudden found some clutch hitting, and that is leading to some exciting baseball, and wins on the Northside. One night after scoring four times with two outs, the Cubs pushed six across after two outs for good measure. Going back to Sunday the Cubs have had thirteen two out RBI’s, THIRTEEN. So it really is not a surprise that the Cubs have won four straight games, clutch is good, clutch is productive. Travis Wood didn’t need much help in this one as he picked up his second win of the season, he was stellar over seven innings. The Cubs will go for the sweep tomorrow night against Pittsburgh’s ace, Gerrit Cole.

At the Plate:

Dexter Fowler is scorching hot right now, he went 3-for-4 with two RBI’s, and a stolen base.

Kris Bryant came up with another big hit tonight, he was 1-for-4 with a walk, a stolen base, and an RBI.

Starlin Castro, have a night, he was 3-for-5 with an RBI, a stolen base, and two runs scored.

Junior Lake made a splash (heh) in his return, he was 2-for-5 with a double, an RBI, and a run scored.

Well, that was fast, under two and a half hours roughly. Jason Hammel was outstanding tonight as he completely shut down the Pirates from the first pitch as the Cubs took the series opener, 4-0. Hammel went eight shutout innings, and was never really in trouble as he only allowed four base runners, all hits, no walks. The Cubs got their runs from likely sources, Anthony Rizzo drove in two runs as did Kris Bryant. All four runs were driven in with two outs, you can’t really measure how important those hits are. With the shutout win the Cubs have now won three straight, and have improved to 11-7 on the year, mighty impressive.

At the Plate:

Dexter Fowler got things going from the lead-off spot again, he was 2-for-3 with a walk, a stolen base, and a run scored.

Jorge Soler broke out of his recent slump, he was 2-for-4 with a double, and a run scored.

Anthony Rizzo continues to be a machine, he was 2-for-3 with a walk, a double, two RBI’s, and a run scored.

Kris Bryant is racking up the RBI’s, he was 2-for-4 with two RBI’s in this one, and he has knocked in nine so far this year.

Jonathan Martinez got the start, and the loss today as be struggled with finding the plate. Martinez worked five innings, giving up three runs on five hits while walking four (see?), and striking out one.

Josh Conway was knocked around a bit, he worked 1.1 innings, giving up one run on two hits while walking two.

Gerardo Concepcion was outstanding again today, he worked 1.2 scoreless innings, he did not surrender a hit, and struck out two.

There really isn’t much to say about this one, everything went right for South Bend as they destroyed Great Lakes 16-3. The Cubs pounded out twenty hits, and we the beneficiary of five errors in the win.

Another monster blow out tonight, this time it was the Smokies going all sorts of crazy on the Jackson Generals. After breaking out to a 4-0 lead in the top of the first, the Smokies gave all four of them back to tie the game up. It was all Smokies, scoring eight runs over the next eight innings en route to a 13-4 win.

At the Plate:

Pin-Chieh Chen went 3-for-4, with a double, two walks, two runs scored.

It’s noticeable, the Cubs don’t quit. After blowing a 4-2 lead in the sixth, and falling behind 8-5 in the 7th, the Cubs charged back, scoring four times over the final two innings to win 9-8. Trailing 8-6 in the ninth, the Cubs loaded the bases with no outs and Starlin Castro came through with his third hit of the evening to tie things up. Kris Bryant scored on a Welington Castillo ground out, and Hector Rondon shut the door, what an absolutely outstanding victory. With the win the Cubs have now won two games after trailing heading into the ninth, you know how many times that happened last year? Zero. Welcome to Chicago Cubs baseball, you should probably start watching.

At the Plate:

Anthony Rizzo is an on base machine, he was 2-for-4 with two runs scored, and he was hit by another pitch.

Jorge Soler finished strong in this 0ne, he was 2-for-5 with a double, and two runs scored.

Kris Bryant, just wow, he was 2-for-4 with a double, a walk, two RBI’s, and one run scored.

Starlin Castro is shutting a lot of people up, he was 3-for-5 with a dinger, four RBI’s, and a run scored. He’s hitting .352 on the season.

Welington Castillo got a start tonight, and he made it count, he was 2-for-5 with a homer, double, two RBI’s, and a run scored.

On the Mound:

Travis Wood got the start tonight, and was decent, he worked five innings, giving up three runs on four hits while walking two, and striking out five.

Brian Schlitter continued his rough 2015, he worked two-thirds of an inning, giving up two runs on three hits while walking one.

Phil Coke got out of Schlitter’s trouble, he retired the last batter of the sixth.

Jason Motte struggled tonight, he worked one inning, giving up three runs on two hits while walking one.

Edwin Jackson was perfect tonight, and he picked up the win, he worked a scoreless inning while striking out one.

Hector Rondon was just disgusting tonight, he worked a scoreless ninth for his third save of the season.

It was a rough start for the Cubs tonight as Jake Arrieta got knocked around in the first, but escaped only giving up one run, then he shut it down. Arrieta retired the next sixteen hitters on his way to a stellar seven inning performance to pick up his second win of the season. He doesn’t get that win without the exploits of the Cubs future, and well, present, in the middle of the order. After a double by Soler, and a walk by Rizzo, Kris Bryant crushed a two-run double, and ended up scoring on the same play to give the Cubs a 4-1 lead en route to a 5-2 victory.

Note: A fan was hit in the back of the head by a Starlin Castro‘s line drive foul ball. She was behind the protective screen, but was resting on the screen and the ball really smoked her. The result was a 23 minute on field delay, the update is that she was conscious and thanking the people helping here into the ambulance. Hopefully she’s okay.

Things started out well enough today as the Cubs jumped on the listless Padres with two runs in the bottom of the first. I say listless because the Padres were sleepwalking in the first, they made two errors and looked generally disinterested. From that point on it was all Padres, as they scored five unanswered runs en route to a 5-2 win. Jon Lester was just okay again today, he worked into the sixth inning but made far too many mistakes up in the zone, he needs a road start or two to settle in. The Cubs threatened a few times as they left the bases-loaded twice, and were just 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

At the Plate:

Dexter Fowler has been swinging it well as of late, he went 2-for-5 with a run scored.

Jorge Soler remains productive while hitting second in the order, he was 1-for-5 with an RBI, his ninth of the season.

Kris Bryant had another solid game, he was 1-for-3 with his first double of the season, he was also hit by a pitch.

On the Mound:

Jon Lester got the start in this one, and also the loss, he worked 5.1 innings, giving up three runs on six hits while walking two, and striking out four.

Brian Schlitter couldn’t get out of Lester’s trouble, he worked two-thirds of an inning, giving up one hit while striking out one.

Jason Motte couldn’t keep things close, he tossed one inning, giving up two runs on two hits.

Edwin Jackson had a solid outing out of the pen today, he worked two scoreless innings, he surrendered one hit.

The Padres come to town for a three game set this weekend, and look who will great them…. KRIS BRYANT!! That’s right, it’s Bryant time on the Northside as the phenom will make hi major league debut today. Both teams come into this series playing solid baseball as the Padres sit at 6-4 on the season and just took two out of three from the Diamondbacks. The Cubs have played one of the toughest schedules in baseball, and have yet to lose a series, the Padres are another great test.

Padres: Newcomer Justin Upton is paying dividends right away for the Padres. Over the last seven games Upton has been unreal, he’s hitting .450 (9-for-20) with a double, two dingers, and four RBI’s.

Cubs: The Cubs are starting to swing the bats much better, and it’s Jorge Soler leading the charge. Soler has been pounding the ball as of late, he’s hitting .360 (8-for-22) over his last seven games, during that span he has two dingers, and seven RBI’s with an OPS of 1.081, loud noises!

Who is Not:

Padres:Jedd Gyorko is still terrible, sorry. Gyorko has been really bad again this year, and he’s only hitting .091 (1-for-11) over his last seven games with zero walks, and four strikeouts.

Cubs:Miguel Montero is still looking for some solid footing on his new club as he has struggled out of the gate. Montero is hitting .143 (2-for-14) over his last seven games with just two RBI’s.

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